Every now and then, if I pay a little bit of attention to the Democratic candidates for president, I start thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could vote for Donald Trump.
But all that has to happen is for DT to get on Twitter and say, well, just about anything, and I'm back to thinking I will never never never never vote for that man.
Although it may sound like I'm in a quandary here, really I'm not. I'm perfectly happy to abstain from voting in presidential elections. It is highly likely that in 2020, if I'm still around by then, I'm going to be deeply bothered by both candidates. But I've come to believe that lesser-evil voting is not for me.
I usually get pushback on this matter of the "voting is your patriotic duty" variety. Sometimes I get pushback from supporters of one candidate or another (or haters of one candidate or another, who tell me that "voting against" can be just as important as "voting for").
Much of this storytelling is just that: the story we tell ourselves about the value of voting. I suppose it's as workable a system for choosing a leader as any other that nations have come up with through the centuries. I do vote in most of the other levels of government from the Senate down to the city council, etc.), but our presidential election process seems like nothing more than a giant receptacle for BS. The gist of my feeling on this matter comes down to a bumper sticker slogan: "Don't vote! It only encourages them!"
All that having been said, this election feels a little different to me. The Democratic Party's tilt to port seems like something pretty drastic to me. Given our drastic president, I had about convinced myself that I could vote for a moderate Dem, if they were sensible enough to nominate one, but it looks like that is not going to be an option.
And so, oh well! I will probably not be voting in the coming election. But I will watch with interest, and sometimes comment here at A Stranger Here. But I promise . . . not very often.
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